The 24-Hour Comics Day Challenge was going to start at 11:00 AM on Saturday, but due to a NJ Transit delay our two participant-artists started just before noon - no fear, the challenge was to create a 24-Page comic in 24-Hours so the clock started a bit late for them. Once settled in, Jesus Marquez (long-time friend of ours from the faith-based comic book Megazeen) and his friend Daniel Ramirez dug right in and began working. Taking a few small breaks throughout the day. The real challenge came in the early hours of the morning.

I can say for myself, when I was younger, staying awake all hours of the night was a cakewalk. However, at over 40 years now, my body and mind just can't do it without a fight. The paunchiness hit all three of us at about 4 AM, and the crashing an hour or so later. In an effort to stay awake, and after reading the 24-Hour Comics Day Blogs, I rushed to get our Blog up and running, since somewhere along the line I did not realize that we could post all on the official 24-Hour Comics Day Blog itself (with an invite), oh well, next year to be sure!

To give those of you not too into comics an idea of the magnitude of this events; a few years ago, New Moon Comics participated in the comic-challenge event "Comics Jam War" (you can see the CJW Photo Album here; and signed copies of the book are available in the store for a limited time!) which Jesus and the guys from Megazeen (Joe, Tom, and Keith) all took the bronze. That event called for an 8 page story to be completed in 12 hours, based off of a specific theme. At noon, we were given a picture of a guy in a comic shop with the caption "There's An Alien In The Comics Shop" - our guys had to develop an 8-Page story, and complete all art and lettering within 12 hours.

24-Hour Comics Day is a SOLO project. You can work with others, but it defeats the purpose of the endurance-based challenge. The story, art, and lettering must be completed with a 24 consecutive hour period. Although this seems easy, it is not. During the CJW, the guys finished the 8-Pages with few seconds to spare, and that was a whole team of creators!

I am proud of Jesus and Daniel! They fought hard to get their work done, and make it professional and worthwhile. In the end; sadly, Jesus was unable to complete the challenge of a full 24-Page story, but did make a creative ending to his work; and Daniel, although finished, felt his work could have been better (every artist feels their work could be better, for what it's worth). But, in the end, they fought through the fatigue, the late-night laughter over the poor dialog in the Star Wars prequels, and the need to scream to stay awake. And, they both dragged their tired selves' home determined to do better next year, learning from the experience they just endured.

For me, and for the store - it will be nice to have more creators in the store for next year. We, at one point had 7 creators scheduled, but due to work or other obligations, all but two had to withdraw. However, we expect them and many others next year!

In Denmark, the 24 Hour Comics Day became an online event hosted by www.Seriejournalen.dk. Starting out on Saturday Oct 18th at 10 AM GMT+1, nine amateur and pro comics artists worked on their individual 24 page comic from different locations all over the country (and neighbouring countries - Anna worked from Norway!). Every one or two hours they uploaded their pages to a special thread in the discussion forums of the website, giving the audience an opportunity to watch and comment the work in progress.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Parents are showing up to collect their kids and things are winding down.

Michael finished "Stray Dog" and Paul has 13 pages in the can. He's saying it has something with the hard uncomfortable chairs and Jake is backing him up. Michael says that he had to stand up a lot. That helped. Pete has six pages done but he has assured us he'll finish it onaccounta he likes it.

BIG NEWS! Jeff has finished at 11:59! We are all in awe of his awesomeness in finishing so close to the deadline.

Just a few minutes left here before the cleanup begins. Folks have been wrapping up and heading home all morning, though a few were still sticking it out and trying to finish their comics. The rest of us are just reading them. We also had a visit from a photographer for the Journal North, so check out tomorrow's edition.

We're figuring that we had 25 "official" participants, with plenty of friends, family, and other assorted hangers-on throughout the event. Since the last post, we've seen the completion of Tony's Enjoy the Show, Kirstiann's Black & White (in color), Rafael and Conseulo's Aliens and Heroes (Consuelo also finished four pages of her own story), Caitlin's At the Edge of the Lake, Julie and Tonya's Cowan's the Best Character…, and Katie's Marquis (pencilled, though not all inked). Dale and Chris left with their mostly-completed comics, and Jett, Ethan, Benjy, Emily, Evan, and Vanessa are still plugging away.

Now I ask you, does this look like the face of an old man who has been up for 29 hours?

Here we are at hour 21 and Gwen has finished her comic, "Lola".

The sun is up and shining. The sky is a beautiful blue, not cloud in it and the temperature is a lovely, oh, I don't know, somewhere around 70, 75. Not that I want to boast or anything, but to those people who, like my friend, Chuck, from Chicago, when he got off the plane in Phoenix, saw all the sand, and said, "Where's the beach?", that's just the way it is almost every day here in the Land of Enchantment. I think the weather is the greatest thing about New Mexico. Unlike Phoenix, which is a blast furnace in the summer, we here in Q-Town enjoy mild, sunny winters and warm summers, the temperature rarely topping the century mark. And, it's a dry heat so you don't really even perspire all that much.

And you may wonder why I'm going on and on about all this. Well, the truth is Jake's camera battery died on us so I'm waiting for it to charge up enough so we can get Gwen's pic so the poor girl can go home and start the recovery process from this grueling ordeal. She's being so patient, bless her heart...

The battery has charged enough and we can now bid a fond and grateful farewell to Gwen.

And not only that, but while I was in the bathroom performing my morning ablutions, Stu finished his comic, too.

Here's Stu with his comic.

And Paul has gone for Starbuck's (the BAWLS is long gone, but you know, BAWLS is a proud sponsor of 24 Hour Comic Day).

Bless his heart...

A lotta heart blessin' goin' on here, but then again, it is Sunday.

Hour 20

Sun's up and Aliina has finished her comic at 8:26. Here she is with her comic, "Roll".

Yep, morning here in Santa Fe. We've only lost a few and we've got Nikki's Spiffy Whiskers Halloween Edition, James' S.E.F.F., Victoria's Typical Day in Cross Country, and Max's D.A.R.E. done, our ol' buddy Ryk finished his If Thine Eyes Offend Thee… from his place in L.A., and a couple people are just a page or two away from completion. Everyone got some bagels to try and help with that final push.

Anna - me! - has completed her work, and she deserves to sleep. don´t you think?

If you want to see all the pictures this is the address:www.vargie.blogspot.comLater today I will scan them in a proper way, but now I will take a little sleep :) Have a good day, guys from the whole world - it has been good work with you all!

Finished our event two hours ago. We had 27 participants at Muhos County Library . Unfortunately we can't get any examples before the library makes their own copies. Before that there is a nice article plus video and some fotos at Kaleva's website (biggest newspaper in Northern Finland).

Hey, I've been busy! It ain't easy trying to decide which pix get posted and then I've gotta download them from Jake's uber camera, resize them onnaccounta they can't be too big, and then upload them to the blogs, which takes forever...

We've gotten our delivery of 5 gallons of coffee from Java Joe's as we head into the eighth hour.

Also  turns out we have a scanner here in the digital media lab (with scanner software, but no image editing capabilities), so for the folks who have been working at 8.5 x 11, we're able to scan their pages as they finish. Good news, and makes it more likely that 7000 BC will be able to assemble a compilation.